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The year 2012 ended on a sour note for Advance Micro Devices with the chip maker posting a $473 million loss for the fourth quarter.

However, company execs said yesterday, they expect to achieve profitability by the end of 2013 through cost cutting measures and cranking out new chips for laptops and tablet devices.

AMD’s fourth quarter revenues in 2012 fell 32 per cent year-over-year to $1.16 billion, but CEO Rony Read said his company will be cutting research and development expenditures this year and will be standardizing its testing and manufacturing process for making chips to achieve more savings.

“We expect continued choppiness in the PC market in the first half of 2013, and will closely manage the business as we reset, restructure and ultimately transform AMD,” he said.

Sliding revenues were not the only problems, AMD had to face these last few months.

No less 25 executives have left the company in the last few months. Among the latest to join the flight was Michael Goddard, former AMD design chief who after 25 years of service, left the company for Samsung Electronics early this month.

Both AMD and rival Intel Corp., were not nimble enough to react to the fast growing popularity of mobile devices which has led to the decline of the PC industry. Like AMD, Intel is attempting to re-focus its business as sales of desktops and PCs are eclipsed by more popular smart phones and tablets.

Microsoft’s Windows 8 operating systems which brings touch-screen features to laptops has so far failed to jump start sales for AMD and Intel.